If there is one impression that Rishi Sunak wants to convey about his premiership, after the chaotic Boris Johnson years and the wild 49 days of Liz Truss, it is one of calm competence.
So it was that the prime minister took a full day to study the report into bullying allegations against his deputy, written by Adam Tolley KC, before picking up the phone to Dominic Raab early on Friday morning.
Sunak had promised on his first day in office to lead a government of “integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level”, so clearly any bullying claims made by civil servants against Raab, if upheld, could not be tolerated.
But the PM also knew he owed Raab, a close ally who had stuck his neck out to support Sunak’s leadership campaign, a favour or two. And he was worried about allowing the civil service – full of liberal remainer lefties, in the eyes of many Tory MPs – too obvious a victory over a pro-Brexit minister and government.
So when the prime minister had digested Tolley’s findings, he called Raab, who had also read the report, at 9.30am – but chose not to sack him directly.
According to informed sources, the PM merely noted in their polite conversation that Tolley had upheld two allegations of bullying and found that Raab had behaved in an “aggressive” and “intimidating” manner towards officials. It was left to Raab, who had previously agreed to go if Tolley found against him, to read the writing on the wall. He duly did and quit.
But if Sunak’s aim had been to contain any sense of crisis as far as possible, what followed in the ensuing hours had precisely the opposite effect. This weekend, people on all sides of an argument with profound implications for the way the country is run, at a time of grave economic uncertainty and damaging public strikes, have been left angered and more divided than ever.
On cue, and in reaction to Raab’s resignation, on Saturday the rightwing press declared the nation to be in a full-blown crisis of governance, in which a woke civil service was now calling the shots, thanks to a Tory prime minister who had failed to stand up to the mandarins.
The Daily Mail asked on its front page: “Was this the day Britain became ungovernable?” In a leading article, it declared: “Mr Raab was Mr Sunak’s chief supporter during his leadership bid. Yet the PM did nothing to save his man. Instead he delivered a major scalp to his enemies on a plate.” It added: “It has long been obvious that the Whitehall Blob despises the Tories for getting Brexit done and is sullenly obstructive to their plans for change.”
Within hours of quitting, Raab himself had destroyed any hope that the matter could be dealt with in an even vaguely orderly manner by launching a furious public attack on the Tolley report itself and on “activist” civil servants who, he claimed, promoted a “passive-aggressive culture” that targeted thrusting ministers. In his resignation letter, Raab wrote that in “setting the threshold for bullying so low” the report would “encourage spurious complaints against ministers and have a chilling effect on those driving change on behalf of your government – and ultimately the British people.” Raab was trying – and being allowed, unchallenged – to claim the moral high ground.
As soon as they heard he had left the cabinet, plenty of Tory MPs were egging him on, questioning how a Conservative prime minister could throw a trusted minister to the Whitehall wolves so readily.
One former Cabinet minister told the Observer: “What has happened to Dominic will send a worrying message to other ministers. It will say that this is a government that does not stand by its people, that is not prepared to fight for them, that it is one that will kick you out so Rishi can stay clean.”
The concerns were voiced not only by those on the more ideological wing of the Conservative party. Charles Walker, the MP for Broxbourne, said he felt for Raab and added that there were genuine questions about the quality of some of the advice ministers were receiving from civil servants which made expressions of frustration understandable.
“I don’t want to excuse bad behaviour, but I do feel sorry for Dominic,” he said. “There is a view expressed by ministers – not all of them, but quite a few – that the support they are getting from civil servants is not always all that it should be.
“In the main, ministers are people who work extremely hard. As in the case of Amber Rudd [the former home secretary who had to resign], if they are let down by a civil servant and make a mistake as a result, they can end up carrying the can.”
In the mini-reshuffle caused by Raab’s exit, some suspected they saw a drift away from the pro-Brexit, anti-woke course the party had adopted under Johnson and Truss.
Alex Chalk, who was Sunak’s choice for justice secretary, is, like the prime minister, a former pupil of Winchester College, and represents the liberal and ultra-marginal constituency of Cheltenham. One senior Tory Brexiter observed that Chalk was “very pro-remain”. Under Johnson’s premiership, there were constant rumours of Chalk resigning from his ministerial post.
The appointment also raised questions about whether the more hardline policies backed by Raab will now survive. There are now worries on the Tory right about the future of Raab’s Bill of Rights, designed to weaken current human rights laws. Sir Bob Neill, the Tory chairman of the Commons justice committee, who is on the liberal wing of the party, has already told Chalk that the plan should “die a death”.
But if the departure of Raab incensed a good many Conservative MPs and divided the party, the way it all unfolded did little to cheer people in the civil service who feel very strongly about the Raab case. While there was said to have been satisfaction that Raab had gone, there was also dismay, for two reasons.
First, many of those who were involved and gave evidence to the inquiry were upset that it had not been tougher in its conclusions and dismayed that it did not better reflect their complaints of bullying. A senior civil service source said: “There are a lot of people who gave evidence about Raab’s behaviour who feel their evidence did not affect the report. They are disappointed and upset. I don’t know whether he [Tolley] was got at, or what it was. He seems to have just caved on it.”
And second, there was anger in Whitehall that Raab had been given a two-hour period between his decision to quit and publication of the report in which he could dominate headlines and undermine the whole process, insisting it was entirely flawed and unfair to him, before anyone in the civil service had had sight of anything.
Dave Penman, the general secretary of the First Division Association, which represents senior civil servants, said it was clear this had been part of a deal between Sunak and Raab to allow Raab to defend his reputation. “The entire narrative was left to Raab for two hours. It was saying to him, ‘you go out there and put your defence and we will publish later.’ It was deliberate. It was a sop to Raab.
“Yet again the powerful person is given the platform while the civil servants, those who have been bullied, couldn’t even see the report, let alone respond to it. How does it make them feel? It is appalling.”
Rather than seeing the Raab case as a watershed moment which will lead to progress, many civil servants now fear worse may be round the corner.
One former senior government adviser said the Raab counter-offensive following his resignation “will certainly encourage the anti-civil-service lot in the Tory party” as well as rightwing ministers wanting to make their mark by taking on the so-called Blob – such as the home secretary, Suella Braverman.
Another civil service insider said: “You can feel it happening. You can feel them gearing up for all the woke assaults about the lefty civil servants who obstruct Brexit. We are in the run-up to a general election. It is obviously going to happen more now.”
Inside the Whitehall machine, there is a growing view among many officials that if the role of civil servant is held in such low esteem then the private sector might be a better place to work. Many senior officials are leaving or thinking of doing so. The only thing stopping some is the prospect of a change of government.
Another former senior civil servant said that many ex-colleagues were demoralised and looking for escape routes. The decision by the former civil servant Sue Gray to become chief of staff to Keir Starmer has added to fear in the civil service that they will all be badged as closet leftwingers.
One informed insider said: “The mood is terrible. What I pick up is that for many of them it feels like being a senior civil servant has all the downsides of the exposure that you get as a senior politician or business person but none of the upsides of either, like the glory or the pay.”
Suzanne Heywood, the widow of the late former cabinet secretary Jeremy Heywood, said she was “concerned about the onslaught of negative press about the civil service, an institution of which my husband was rightly proud”. As a former civil servant herself, she is considering how the foundation she set up in her husband’s memory could help highlight and celebrate the service’s innovations.
Tensions between recent Conservative governments and the civil service are well established and nothing new. Michael Gove and his former adviser Dominic Cummings led the way, with Gove talking of the Blob and Cummings’s calls for more “weirdos and misfits with odd skills” to apply for new jobs within No 10.
After the pandemic, Jacob Rees-Mogg effectively declared war on civil servants who were still working from home, suggesting their jobs could be farmed out to the provinces. A senior mandarin said: “They don’t like being insulted. The Rees-Mogg stuff really pissed a lot of people off.”
This weekend, Raab may be gone but the uneasy relationship between the government and civil service remains as tense as ever. And some fear it is going to get worse before the general election.
A former senior official said: “Uniformly, civil servants are telling me that the mood is terrible and that they fear it will deteriorate. Their worry is that it is only going to get worse when the Covid inquiry gets under way.
“There is a feeling that after this it will be civil servants who get the blame.”
